2025 SCBWI Midsouth Conference Faculty

Maryn Arreguín has spent over two decades in children’s publishing. She began her book journey working with popular licenses like Disney, Sesame Street, Eric Carle, and Nickelodeon designing sound books, interactive books, and pop-up books. As a Senior Art Director at Sourcebooks Kids, she works closely with illustrators and editors to turn manuscripts into award-winning children’s books. Maryn works on a diverse list of books ranging from board books, picture books, early graphic novels, and young readers. Maryn is the author/illustrator of ONE TINY VOTE and the illustrator of THE LEPRECHAUN’S GAME DAY AT NOTRE DAME and SO LUCKY TO HAVE YOU.

Stephanie Fretwell-Hill is a literary agent with 20 years of experience in the children’s book publishing industry. After starting her career in foreign rights at Walker Books in the UK, Stephanie moved home to the US as an acquiring editor at Peachtree Publishers. In 2016, she joined Red Fox Literary where she represents authors and illustrators of fiction and nonfiction picture books and middle grade. Her clients include R. W. Alley, Drew Beckmeyer, Carolyn Crimi, Kelly DiPucchio, and Rita Lorraine Hubbard. Stephanie lives in North Carolina with her English husband, two very spirited young daughters, and a rescued border collie.

Mikaela Luke is a Taiwanese Canadian children’s book reviewer, scholar, and editor with a Master of Arts in children’s literature. Her paper on transnational migration and magical narratives was published in volume 47(3) of The Lion and the Unicorn. She currently lives in New York and works on a range of picture books to young adult novels as an editorial assistant at Stonefruit Studio, an imprint of Sourcebooks.

Lauren MacLeod is a Nashville-based senior literary agent with Aevitas Creative Management. She represents young adult fiction and nonfiction as well as middle-grade novels. Her clients include Jodi Meadows, the co-author of the New York Times bestselling MY LADY JANE series, actress and activist Nicole Maines, Middle East Book Award-winner Aminah Mae Safi, 2023 Maine Literary Award Winner Sashi Kaufman, and former Youth Poet Laureate of the Southern United States, Alora Young. She is a former board member and co-vice president of the Association of American Literary Agents. In 2024 she was named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree.

Nicole Tugeau is the agent-owner behind the T2 Art & Literary Team. With 23 years experience as both an agent and agency owner, she is still ecstatic about her ever-growing agency and committed to working hard and ethically for the network of bestselling and award-winning authors and illustrators that surround her. What Nicole enjoys most about being an agent is the partnership-making, the friendships and, of course, the success stories. Nicole is a regular contributor to SCBWI and a growing number of colleges and universities that support the visual arts and the children's publishing industry. She is also committed to the community of children's agents and helped to found an independent agent network, KidLitAgents, that chats and zooms regularly to discuss industry, business and contractual topics.

Deeba Zargarpur is a senior editor at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers and Salaam Reads. She acquires picture books, middle grade, young adult, and graphic novels. Her aim is to acquire commercial books that empower young people from diverse backgrounds. She is always on the hunt for stories that inspire a sense of magic and wonder, plot lines that challenge traditional assumptions about morality, and strong character arcs that redefine what it means to be the hero of your own story. She is also the author of HOUSE OF YESTERDAY and FARRAH NOORZAD AND THE RING OF FATE.

Jennifer Lynn Alvarez is the award-winning author of two Middle-Grade fantasy series, THE GUARDIAN HERD and RIDERS OF THE REALM, and two Young Adult standalone thrillers, LIES LIKE WILDFIRE and FRIENDS LIKE THESE. Her books have been published in seven countries and have received critical praise, awards, and international press for their themes on friendship, bullying, personal responsibility, and climate change. She lives in Middle Tennessee.

Sharon Cameron is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of seven award-winning novels, including THE LIGHT IN HIDDEN PLACES (2020), BLUEBIRD (2021) and her newest book ARTIFICE (2023). Sharon’s books have won the Parents’ Choice Gold Award, the Westchester Fiction Award, the Junior Library Guild’s Gold Standard Award, earned starred reviews from Booklist, SLJ, Book Page and Kirkus, and have been chosen for Indie Next Top Ten, YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults, Audible Best Books, and numerous state award nominations. THE LIGHT IN HIDDEN PLACES was a 2020 Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and has been sold in 19 countries.

Ruta Sepetys (Rūta Šepetys) is an internationally acclaimed, #1 New York Times bestselling author of historical fiction published in over sixty countries and forty languages. Ruta is considered a “crossover” novelist as her books are read by both students and adults worldwide. Winner of the Carnegie Medal, Ruta is renowned for giving voice to underrepresented history and those who experienced it. Her books have won or been shortlisted for over forty book prizes, are included on over thirty state reading lists, and are currently in development for film and television.